


Blue Migration

by faceofstone



Category: Myst Series
Genre: Diary/Journal, F/M, Gen, Tenderness, Travelogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21681418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faceofstone/pseuds/faceofstone
Summary: Atrus’ travels in the Age of Tay, out of the hive, past the mountains, past the sunken fields, to the place where Catherine’s dream once reached out to the stars.
Relationships: Atrus/Catherine (Myst)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Blue Migration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wildgoosery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildgoosery/gifts).



> I hope this works for you as a (quite literal) exploration of the Art, dear recipient! Catherine's subconscious exploits fascinate me to no end and I've always wanted to see more of Tay...

89.2.19

Two matters weigh on my mind, as of late. One: for all my adventures and my travels, I struggle to find the words that could encompass the unique pleasantness of sitting by the window of our room here on Tay. The cavernous spaces of the hive are alive, branches and cocoons growing and merging, outer walls getting larger slower than the eye can perceive. And these living spaces, they are lived in as well – greetings are exchanged on the rope bridges, rows of windows glowing with yellow lights dot the dark spongy matter of the cocoons’ walls.

Maybe it simply feels like home, the way home is not. But the state of the great cavern occupies enough of my writings; I would rather this remain in the here and now. The sight of the people of Tay, then (they call themselves such now, I have noticed, embracing their new home over their Rivenese roots), combined, I will admit, with the mushroom pancakes Catherine is fond of smuggling into our room, fills me with a quiet, indescribable joy.

Two: I do wonder whether I am overextending my welcome. Catherine needs this time with her people. I am a stranger here; although we both know that solitude suits me fine and she need not even ask me to leave her to attend her meetings alone, it feels like I am holding her back. Like my sole presence requires her to be two people at once, to live in two worlds at once.

89.2.20

A skein of geese headed South has loudly announced its passage over the hive. I call them geese as I have been informed that these birds greatly resemble the Rivenese geese of yore, whose habitat had gone destroyed years before Tay’s inception. Seeing their likes in these foreign skies was a great source of celebration, I am told, and in this Age, these birds have taken to signify good luck and transformation.

To my ears, they rather sound like very loud roadrunners.

89.2.21

I have made my way to the hive’s outer rind and look at the horizon, to the South.

Skeptical as I may be when it comes to omens and destiny, I would rather not let this attitude blind me when chance adds up in the semblance of a good idea: I shall follow these geese. It has been too long since I last traversed uncharted lands, and the expanses beyond these mountains have called to me from the moment I skimmed over their vague description in Catherine’s salvaged descriptive book. More than a year later, their details have melded in my memory and I feel ready to approach this Age with fresh eyes and a strong disposition toward avoiding any more social gatherings.

The mushroom pancakes will be missed.

I.

I write these notes on separate slips of paper – they will be my present to Catherine upon my return. Not as a survey of her Writing, but simply my thoughts, to her.

II.

I have secured my raft on the Southern shore of the hive’s lake. The sand is fresh and dark. The mountain cliffs beckon.

III.

As an aside, it would be a vexing task to impose a calendar over the perennial vespertine blue of this Age on my own. Time-keeping is, at its heart, a communal endeavor and I shall spare myself the embarrassment of jotting down my informed guesses as to the passing of the days only to come back and find out I was off by a week.

IV.

The mountains! After some time spent following what appears to be a dry riverbed that once flowed to the hive’s lake, I was relieved to find a narrow path leading upwards. I suspect it Written, yet at the same time, its origin is natural. For all my Books, all my years of travels, I remain humbled and awed by the way our words reach out through the branches of the Great Tree of Possibilities to find the one world where an ancient landslide cut the mountainside just so.

One thought mars this contemplation: Catherine never had a reason to write a way out of the self-sufficient hive. If D’ni words caused this, they were my father’s, who wrote the first outline of this Age (and, in his infinite foolishness, called it a failure.)

V.

A tension strains the plateau. As I walk against the strong winds that sweep these altitudes, I feel a clash of wills: Catherine’s vision challenging Gehn’s and ultimately undoing it, covering the she sharp edges of his discordant Writing with new harmonies. Deep gashes crisscross the sedimentary layers, but a vivid blue fluid fills them like a resin, encapsulating strange shapes within. Are they animals, dead or… living, perhaps, in a way that is different from life in the water or on the ground? I was not able to discern any movement past the fluid’s matted luminescence.

VI.

I wonder if this journey has an end point.

Or rather: obviously, it does not. I wonder what I will deem its end point.

VII.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the upland I have been traversing and which, staring up from the hive’s windows, I originally dubbed a plateau, may in fact be the average altitude of this Age, only occasionally giving way to canyons and depressions where water collects and the hive-trees may reach their maturity. I have seen more of them from afar, rising from their lakes, each possessing a mesmerizing elegance that fills my heart and lungs.

Holes, I am sure, dotted the rind of at least one of them. My mind raced to the possibility that those holes, too, might be windows, distant marks of unknown homes carved by unknown people. But they remained dark even as heavy clouds covered the sky. I could see no easy way down and so I carried on, and consign this mystery to younger travelers, armed with better ropes.

VIII.

There is a peculiar peace of mind that comes from observing an Age one did not Write. A sense of wonder unchecked against words.

IX.

An aspect that makes this journey different from the ones in my own Books or, indeed, those of D’ni masters of old which I also did not Write, is that Catherine’s Ages mirror Catherine herself in a way that the Art is not normally meant to encompass.

Or am I biased?

X.

I am biased. Nonetheless, I stand by my previous statement. A Writer’s talent shines through their Ages; to maintain stability through a rising complexity takes skill and experience and _that_ is what a visitor can ultimately admire, beyond the wonders of the Age itself. An ambitious balance among binary stars, an unusual yet breathable atmosphere, a varied biome – all merit of a skilled hand. But here I am, taking in the warm shades of blue that make up Tay’s lakes, rocks and skies, and my mind could not be further away from any of that. Her directions fade in the subconscious, borders blur… as I move away from the place she described, from the rational needs of the haven she wrote for her people, I find her.

A maze of shallow pools turns into a natural rice paddy and something more, something I am not qualified to describe. The landscape feels as if it were about to crumble into nothingness, leaving only a deep blue in its wake.

XI.

I have found the geese again. They rested among the pools. I did not know what to make of those dark spots in the hazy fields, having grown unaccustomed to the presence of other living creatures, until I recognized the shapes of the ones closest to me and then I saw them. Hundreds of geese, a dozen times more than the ones I had seen fly over the hive, a field full of geese, resting. They did not fear me (they did not, I suspect, have many natural predators in this sparse ecosystem). I feel a strange kinship toward them, and have decided to rest here, traveler among travelers, in the company of their gruff calls. Do they meet here and each continue on their journey? Is this their destination, some ancestral nest, from which they will depart to whence they came?

XII.

Whatever significance it may hold for the geese, I know that this place is no destination of mine. This Age traces a path toward its borders and I am willing to see it through. When I speak of borders, they are not to be intended in the geographical sense, since one would reasonably expect Tay to be a planet like all others, orbiting its sun in a corner of a vast universe. Its Descriptive Book also briefly concerns itself with astronomical matters, if memory serves, therefore its Writers’ reach encompasses the skies. And yet a threshold exists. Painful as it may be to write this (Catherine, don’t laugh), it cares not for the fact that it lies outside of my science and understanding. It simply is. I shall reach it.

XIII.

We left together, the geese and I. I took a step forward and they took flight, as if they too were waiting for a sign. I miss their company already.

XIV.

There _is_ a path. From the riverbed to the end of the rice fields, there has always been one obvious way forward, like a string cast across the land.

XV.

The ponds turn dark and barren. They give way to a blue forest. In the forest, there is a glade. In the glade, there is a small cave.

XVI.

The cave is wide enough that, at the right angle, sunlight fills it with warm hues and lets moss grow over its stones. It is also deep enough that its back end is protected from the weather. It is there that I found the device.

I recount these events now to the best of my understanding: the traces I found were not pictures nor words and their memory still fills me with a deep longing for places unknown. The device was a sleek piece of machinery, its casing once white, now colonized by dirt and dust. As I first tried to activate it, a panel almost flickered to life, but the miracle was not to last. I could not observe any kind of external power source, which led me to suspect the existence of a battery of some sort hidden within the machinery’s innards. Disassembling an unknown device with no instructions and very limited tools is an ungrateful task, but I shall corral those complaints to the schematics I penned separately. Eventually, the issue (which indeed did lay with the battery, as these things are wont to do) came to light and I was somehow able to restore some functionality to the device.

It comes not from D’ni, nor from the people of Tay, nor any other civilization which may lie in wait in the far reaches of this Age. Travelers came from the deep space beyond Tay, rested here for a short while and departed again, leaving us with a simple proof of their passing through. Are the sounds recorded in the device their language? Is it an art form, more akin to literature than music? I cannot say. All I know is that upon hearing it, vague images were forming in my mind, and sharp feelings to go with them, and I knew at once that these travelers’ search for a home among the stars was doomed. In the land of their youth, they felt numbness, like outcasts – I fall back upon your words, Catherine, because their story is your story. They were forced to leave; they cherished the occasion. That place was no home for them. It never gave them their roots. But the soil elsewhere is barren. They do not belong.

How long has the device been hidden in this cave? It is not ancient. No less than two years, I believe, but no more than five. In fact, I believe, almost exactly two years: the day you first linked to your creation and the endless possibilities contained in your writing settled on one world, one moment. The farther I travel, the more I find you and here I am, at the end of this strange road, all rationality fallen by the wayside. I have no proof of what I am saying but at the same time it feels right, so let me offer it to you, as a kindling and a hope:

Through the Great Tree of Possibilities, you reached out until you found a trace of your same longing, your same unease of the soul which I and your dearest friends can listen to and superficially console but never truly understand. But you are understood. They left this for you, for me to take these memories to you. Catherine, my love, you are not alone.


End file.
